Drabble Collection I: Water
by sleepy-geeky
Summary: Twenty unrelated drabbles united with the theme 'water.' NEW DRABBLE: The Warrior's Song, a last battle story staring Sokka.
1. Suited

**Title:** Suited  
**Author:** sleepy-geeky

**Word Count:** 142  
**Challenge:** 62, prima facie  
**Notes:** Heh, first avatar fic in a while. XD Can be shippy or not, I guess.

Brash, dim, loud, and without talent – the boy impresses Zuko least of all the Avatar's companions. His sister, the waterbender, and the blind Earthbender seem so much more suited to helping save the world.

The charge to the Fire Nation capital went badly, and Zuko thinks this might be the end of Avatar Aang and his companions. Then the peasant boy's plans work, Ozai's guards are incapacitated, and the Avatar is free to charge straight to the throne room and to victory and honor.

Perhaps Sokka was not suited to saving the world, but saving the world definitely suited him.


	2. A Parable

Spoilers for Secret of the Fire Nation, though not much and more of the shippy kind.

-A Parable-

I couldn't do it. There we were, standing in what should have been romantic moonlight under any other circumstances, and all I could think of nothing but Yue.

I knew I was acting stupid, because even though everyone thinks I am, I'm not stupid at all. I knew it wasn't fair to Suki to get jealous when she mentioned another guy – okay, even if the other guy was me -- and then not kiss her without thinking of another girl.

I sat for hours on the edge, looking out over the lake. Water – that was me, I guessed, because I was Water Tribe even if I couldn't do fancy magic stuff like my sister. And the Moon, that was Yue, would always be Yue no matter how far away from the North Pole I was. I, Water, stared up at the moon, unable to touch her, unable to get anywhere near her. I watched the waves crash against the cliff, and smiled: the pass, Earth, Suki. Earth is strong, dependable, and safe unlike bridges of ice and girls who turned into fish. And Water below touched Earth below and the moon looked down, mostly impassive but I hoped maybe approving.


	3. Make You Proud

Make You Proud

I stand on a wall made of ice, staring down the fire nation ships as they enter farther and farther into our tiny bay. Beneath my feet, the ice bridge cracks and I struggle to steady myself, glancing backward at the chaos erupting in the village. Behind me, Katara rushes around, shoos old people and children into tents as though it would protect them from the ravages of the Fire Nation – the monsters that took our mother, your wife. I wait there alone, the young "warriors" I tried to train abandoned me for their mothers, to cry loudly and alert the soldiers to the exact position of their family. And as I ready myself for a fight, by my self against an entire ship of well-trained and well-armed men, I feel strangely unafraid. Standing here in the proud colors of my tribe equals glorified and honorable suicide, but Water Tribe men do not go down without a fight, no matter how young the man or how hopeless the fight. So I hold steady, glaring through black-rimmed eyes I pained myself because no one remained to paint it for me, with hands inexplicably trembling in clumsily tied gloves. The words 'desperate last stand' and 'dead meat' flash through my mind as the ships land inches from my face. There is a moment of perfect silence, as the hold opens and I slide downward with the snow, when clarity rushes into my mind and tells me clearly, as the ice cracks between my feet: you are going to die.

The feeling creates a terrifying rush, my heart beating fast and cold sweat forming around my brow. I sit shivering in the snow and fighting the orders of my brain to turn and run; instead I remember the promise I made to you before the men left two years ago: to protect them, those who cannot protect themselves. It does nothing to ease my terror as the smoke clears and the husks of men in Fire Navy army appear, but something in those thoughts stops me from taking the cowardly path of a child. Still, though, my legs refuse to move. I grit my teeth and shift into a crouch, seeing your face, and Katara's and Mom's and Gran-Gran's and the rest of the village in my mind's eye. I see them dead and burning, the last of the Southern Water Tribe laid to waste, and I release an anguished noise that rings for miles on the cold winter's day. And then, with all the desperate anger of my ancestors behind me, I charge hoping for only one thing: to make you proud.

Author's Note: I know this scene was played for laughs, but it chokes me up every time. Poor Sokka.


	4. The Warrior's Song

The Warrior's Song

The battle had raged for sixteen hours, from six in the evening when they storm the Fire Nation palace until the sun's zenith when the comet crosses the sky. Though Aang defeated Ozai around five in the morning, the dictator's followers and rivals still surged against the Avatar's gathered forces at noon, when the comet flew overhead and the Fire Benders received an enormous extra burst of strength.

Desperately the Southern Warriors, fighting as a unit at the front line, struggled to compensate for their enemy's sudden vigor. The effort seemed useless as they fell back slowly, into the Earth Kingdom troops sent by King Bumi and the small, newly energized unit of Fire Nation rebels under the flag of General Iroh fighting nearby.

From out of the midst of the warriors, a young and untrained voice rose above the battle cries and screams of agony. It carried over the sounds of the battle to his brothers'-in-arms ears, reminding them of home. The song told of the moon spirit, the cold shores of the North Pole and the stark beauty of it all; of family, hearth, ice dodging and proud paint, and becoming men. The comet passed out of sight, and behind it – like a miracle from a tale of old – followed the moon until it reached the sun and stopped, casting the battlefield into darkness.

Other voices joined the high young warble, adding their rough richness and singing of places far from home, loneliness, of death and destruction at the hands of a powerful enemy. The warriors in blue pushed forward again, startling the now depleted Firebenders with the feeling in their song and the ferocity of their attack. The song, nearing its end, turned to victory, to the spoils of war and finally returning home.

As the moon dropped slowly from the scene the leader of the southerners surveyed the field; in the scant hour that Yue covered the moon the Avatar's troops had won almost total victory. A single young voice, the first singer, sang still of young love and loss quietly as he watched the moon sink again under the horizon.


End file.
